Another Picture

I am a camera,

You are the screen.

I project and

reflect upon you.



Imagine 2 pictures,

propped against some attic wall,

our images changing

in this hidden room.



I want to take 2 canvases,

and each with one brush,

take turns to paint our images;

respond to each other's strokes.


Show me what you see.

Reflect upon me.

We can share each others' vision,

Become each others' screen.


Imagine the hidden pictures

transforming as we work.

An evolving parallel,

only accessed in our minds.

Honey thoughts out loud.

Watching a bee lazily drifting today.

It settles on the tiniest lavender flowers,

I read they're attracted to blue,

though lavender is it's own colour.

Pondering if the power of its scent

has also drawn the bee to it's nectar.

Smells are very compelling;

sometimes more than the look of something.


Wonder where its hive is.

Humming the sound of purposeful activity there.

Is there honeycomb within.

Some people don't like honey.

Its texture and intense sweetness with it's own

particular flavour underlying it,

depending on where the bees have been,

requires open-minded taste,

like wine, or olive oil, or water.



Come to think;

everything we eat or drink has the essence

of it's origin within its taste.

Sometimes its more perceptible,

than others.

Sometimes it takes a lot of practice,

to discern it.

Perhaps the produce from the polylectic bees,

has a more complex, delicate taste,

than the intense flavours gathered,

by the oligoleges.


Whatever sort, however beautiful,

and delicious,

Vegans won't touch it.

Others who think about the way it's made won't either.

Coming from an insect's bottom is possibly

a bit off-putting,


if you let it be.



But the purposeful wandering of the bee,

attracted to flowers,

snuggling into snapdragons,

roaming over the moorland heather,

luxuriating in the masses of red campion

along the hedgerows,

loving the aquilegia;

(if they waken early),

and the buddleias that tower absurdly

high in gardens and out of walls,

gracing wasteland,

alongside the graceful nettles;

butterfly nurseries;

(even they have their flowers)

is a magical thing.



Bees have been revered

even worshipped,


justifiably,


since humans discovered their honey.



Up in the trees,

different types of bees,

drawn to apple and cherry blossom,

alder and blackthorn flowers,

even the hollies,

and the ubiquitous sycamore

hold nectar and pollen,

precious and nutritious

to bees and so, by proxy,

to us.


The honey made from the bees

whose work is to pollinate Manuka trees,

is surely the most prized and expensive honey

of all,

and said to have antibiotic and healing properties.

Slathered on wounds,

it keeps the germs at bay.


Thinking of soldiers,

clutching honey-spread bandages.

Did that ever happen?

Or was honey too fine a thing

to be found on a battlefield.  


We watched the Baka people waiting

for the honey gatherer.

Shinning up the tall straight trunk

of an enormous tree to reach

the bees' nest with his smoking torch.

Such skill and bravery,

to risk one's life,

in pursuit of the prize of honey.

The others, waiting anxiously,

excitedly at the foot of the tree.

My small daughter, watching

the film with me, gasping

as some bees, not made sleepy

by the smoke,  bombard the gatherer,

who calmly wafts at them with the torch.



How she wanted to live like them.

Me too. Fishing and cultivating plantains,

and singing and waiting for the honey.

Just once a year.

Gorging on the comb.

Beautiful golden treat.



The wealth of bees,

their gathered gold,

how we steal it,

to rectify our ills.

Heal our souls even.

Maybe they make it especially for us.

A body's heart's ease,

for time everlasting.

Poesy

What is a poem ?

A rising confluence ?

A boiling spot where

emotions and ideas

meet and spill over into

imagination's flood

to form a mesh of words

shored against 

the backdrop wall

of the mind's eye?



Or possibly a bunch of gathered thoughts,

Scooped up as you walked along 

for days and days,

The hedgerows thronging with them.

You come back in to sit,

The quiet of the kitchen pungent

with the abundant bunches which

tumble and scatter in your attempt

to put them down.



There they lie, 

Itinerant discordants,

Jostling for position,

Bedraggled things,

That you fumble to arrange

in some loose knit way.




Write a list before

you write it down ;

- Bath mats

(for your grown-up child),

plus other things you'd like to buy

to prop her up because

you feel she cannot exist upright

without you.


(How quaint.

How funny.

When she's wondering how

to make you feel ok

about her absence

on her birthday ) .



Now turn the paper over

and compose,

This poem;

Some words to prop me up,

To make me feel an 

adult on the occasion of

my daughters' 20th birthday.



A poem as crutch,

As wondering,

And thinking about.

As proxy,

and love itself,

Words to quell,

To soothe,

To expiate,

To visualise.

A list of things,

A kind of spell,

That makes a posy

for a birthday.

Clearing up

You go in and the telly's on;

but nobody watching.

Go through to the kitchen -

know you'll find him there,

Making tea;

Or in the garden through the window:


It's the mess that's left behind that

causes the most distress,

but it's not a mess, it's not a mess,

And I don't mind, I don't mind.


Someone's dug your roses up

and the greenhouse has gone.

It's a lot to keep up,

Things must move on.

But your tomatoes,

And those beautiful melons,

So ripe and suggestive

in their cut off tights to hold 

them up they were so heavy.


We loved your curly cucumbers.

You tried so hard to keep them straight,

But they were unruly in their

waywardness. A bit like me.


I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,

For all the unresolved loveliness,

Such an abundance of beauty

in everything surrounding me

that is here now,

And in dreams and memory.


A surfeit, sometimes a doubling,

Nowhere specific for it all

to go ; the spaces

we leave behind must

be filled with another thing,

Old things be put aside,

Or they will stuff our cupboards,

Cram our minds.

Fill us up too much.


Over time,

Places will empty,

And fill again,

A tide of some sort,

Washing things up then,

Taking them away again,

But always,

Traces of history,

All of its facets,

Ghosts of experience,

 Will remain.

A discussion between 2 cylinders

Close your critical eye;

Listen and use every other faculty.

Disregard the illusion of progress,

Of individuality parading in succession,

As if Duchamp's nude was in fact

descending into our space.


Consider though that

Maybe she might just join us,

Take a walk,

An extended hike if we ask.


But where would we come

to rest ?

Even Alan Bennett has

no armchair.


Perhaps our perambulations

could take a turn

around the drum and return

to the space within,

Each of us cramming ourself in,

And altering the original image.


And maybe a diversionary visit

to a boutique could be navigated

en route, the bride redressed,

Returning from the other side

of the large glass.

We would make a nice group.

Dichotomy

We stand as two.

There is always two.

Parallel things,

Where wholes divided.


Everything is divisible.

All things are parting,

Other wholes blossoming

From this division of parts.


Here is one thing,

There stands another.

Above is the water.

Beneath are the stars.


Stand before the mirror

and contemplate the other.

There is space that's not void,

Here is change as we look.


Transitions, transferences,

Mutations growing

from borrowed parts.

Mirrored emergences.


Turn to the side,

Scan all around,

From North to the South,

From East to the West.


Be still and look closely.

Things are evolving,

All things dividing.

Infinity unfolds.

Future Woman

I'm going to create a utopian future idea for my elderly self. This is to counteract and 

hopefully cancel out the possibility of the recurring vision that keeps surfacing of me as a 

vagrant, a bag lady, if you'll excuse the expression. This vague, hazy picture of myself

wandering around a bleak, rainy city in several layers of filthy clothes, a battered old hat, 

worn down, ill-fitting boots, pushing a shopping trolly bearing my collection of rubbish in old 

plastic bags started to form itself on the backdrop of my mind when arriving in  

Manchester many years ago and, walking across Piccadilly, I passed a lady who was just 

that. 

I remember her that way, but I may have elaborated on some of the details because 

memory's like that. The original lady who inspired the image was, I think, well known in 

Manchester, but I think I've mixed her up with other characters such as Mrs Tachyon in 

Terry Pratchetts' story Johnny and the Bomb and the lady feeding the birds in Mary Poppins 

for example. 


Except my old lady definitely does not have a time-travelling trolley. She is totally vagrant 

and absorbed in her own world with its processes. These are very time-consuming and 

complicated; esoteric and important and they must be done outside on the urban street.

Each time this image crops up, I try to modify it. I imagine she has a cosy little terraced 

house to go to each night, with a cat and a friendly neighbour to look in on her. But no, like 

one of those imposing, invasive visual edits, this image is rapidly swept aside to reveal the 

awful scene of a grubby wooden shelter somewhere, with gaps in its roof and a filthy floor 

and a bench where she lies, precariously balanced, with the trolly full of debris 

dragged beside her for some sort of flimsy protection. It will be stolen by young, 

heartless thugs now and then, raided for it's bizarre detritus, swung around and played with 

until, becoming boring, it is smashed to the ground, leaving her angry and raving at them 

with her frail fists.

So I must rescue her from this bad situation. It really isn't sustainable at her age. The rituals 

she is performing can be done elsewhere with equal effect.

I put her in a garden. It's a walled garden in Spring. I love crumbling Cheshire brick. There 

are apricots and apples and pears growing against it, Roman fashion. An avenue of Cherry 

blossom along the gravel paths that divide the different beds. It's all been divided up like a 

knot garden. From above you could see the intricacy of it's design. As she wanders along 

the labyrinthine paths, it has the atmosphere of a maze, but without dead ends and with 

vistas. As she pauses next to a bed bordered by lavender, just showing its new tips, she 

looks across to the open circle in the wall which is a window on the fields surrounding the 

garden. Somewhere in those fields is a large field where people camp. Other fields have 

crops growing in them. The campers tend the crops. Turning to face the opposite direction, 

there is a door in the wall. It's slightly ajar and you can just glimpse the path leading up to 

the house. It's a large old farmhouse with lots of bedrooms and an annexe. Visitors come 

and go. They share the cooking, shopping, cleaning etc. It's a place people come to on 

retreat. There's a room lined with bookshelves, another compact with records, a computer 

with hordes of music to access and a good sound system. The middle of the floor is clear 

for dancing and it's lined with sofas. There are headphones in case you prefer that way of 

listening. 

The annexe has a rehearsal space for musicians with a recording studio. It also has a 

couple of very light rooms for making art. One has printing equipment in it.

It's all run as a co-op. It belongs to everyone. I don't know who the members are or how

the guests and visitors get to know about it. I don't know what the racial, sex or age mix is,

but this is a much better future for my future self so I won't question it too closely.



There she is, she's forking over a bed ready to plant something. Someone's coming through 

the gate bringing two cups of tea. She looks to be about the same age as my future woman 

and as she sets the cups down on a table which joins two wooden chairs together, she 

beckons my future woman to join her. Oh, actually, it was a tray she brought and there's a 

plate with cake on it too. 

Future woman, smiling broadly, sticks her long handled fork in the loamy soil, takes off her 

gloves and comes forward to join her, throwing the gloves into the shopping trolly which 

is parked on the path. Sitting down, she sips the tea, takes a piece of light golden sponge 

and, looking out at the perfect order of the beautiful kitchen garden, says "you came 

then" and the two women turn to each other and laugh. 

Explanatory Notes

Language is illusory. Everything said or written has been so before, in a different arrangement.

The world goes backwards as it goes forwards. It's a pendulum swing.

Ideas are oscillations , they rise and fall, fall and rise ad infinitum.

As there is only the same amount of matter in the universe, so there is only the same amount of

ideas and language and progress and newness is illusory, born of a lack of experience.

Newness must come from outside. It must be pulled in from another dimension, as from a cloud in

space, along the lines of panspermia, propounded by Fred Hoyle.

An Old Feeling

My self within,

Raging energy,

A burning adolescent.

I become its dummy.


Out of my self,

Spirit suspended,

Looking down upon

the ugly contortions


of the ego in pain.

Descending, my spirit

opens wide its arms,

silently smiling,


too quiet sometimes

for my self to notice,

in the midst of my

noisy flailings.


Sometimes, when apart

I see you too,

Just one fraction of

an essence, your soul with


its head bowed in

susceptibility.

Slowly, as our selves

retract, we rise and stand



together, spirits

smiling at each other,

The distance rainbowed

between our gaze.

The impossibility of creation.

Impossible Creation

Part I


We know we all create. Surviving the day to day requires us to. The desire to focus on this and

expand upon it, extemporising, perhaps letting the notion of it dominate and dictate our existence,

is possibly what distinguishes the "artist" from others, by which I mean to include writers and

musicians. The activity is analogous to following a religion and trying to uncover its

truths and mysteries. We assume it removes the "initiate" from the mundane, lifts them higher,

psychologically and spiritually from those who don't appear to focus so forensically on this activity.


The one who produces an artefact, words, music that resonates with us, highlighting emotions,

thoughts and feelings, leading us beyond them, challenging our notions of beauty, love, what is

significant, becomes our focus. We watch them closely, observe what they produce, why they did

so, their influences and reasons or thinking, and we absorb them into our being. We stand infront

of a Rothko and think " I am Rothko - he is me - I feel what he felt."  We become empathetic and

this would appear to be a positive thing. Or, we can stand back and marvel, as with some amazing

work by Michelangelo and imagine him some god or someone led by god. Above human in some

way.


However, absorbing another's being, or distancing ourselves from the genius we see

portrayed, that is, acknowledging that we could not ever produce work of such high calibre as

this or that artist, could absolve us from our own job of processing events etc of our own lives. It

is my belief that we need to unravel, unfold and extemporise on our individual experiences, ideas,

thoughts and feelings because, although I believe in the collective unconsciousness as

described by Carl Jung, I also think this should be added to and expanded by each individual.



My conclusion, therefore, in this time of great anxiety about the nature of creation in which painting

appears obsolete, the novel deceased, music just a regurgitation of sounds gone before, is that the

way forward for the arts, for the process of creativity, is not to obsess about the medium, the genre,

the intent or the nature of the process, the characters who have become celebrities, the work that is

deemed great but seems odd even unfathomable at all, but to encourage participation, to expect

everyone to have a creative life; to live creatively and to regard all the things produced, whether

deemed mediocre, or undeveloped even bad, as valid fragments of the creative fabric that we are

woven from. Threads. Or broken pot. Perhaps the totality of our creative efforts is a broken pot.



Part II

Each day is filled with acts of creation. Quietly marvellous things, like cooking and baking. Grace

Paley wrote a poem about making a pie instead of writing a poem because a pie felt more useful

and was always welcome. How many of us scribble, daub, build even, on the sly, leaving the ongoing

things to one side with guilt and attending to these indefinable activities and engagements as if they

were our illegitimate children or concubines who we feel we cannot acknowledge with the full weight

of our love or attend to with the care and time we would like to offer them. They're our selfish

indulgences, things we do when we feel we should be pouring our energies into our day to day duties,

more pressing and urgent and legitimate than this other, which will only, after all, be poured into that

deepest pool of forgotten things.

Not only that, as you glance around in the morning, your eye rests upon the beautiful dish and bowl

that you bought from a potter whilst on holiday, then the fine etching of a landscape given as a lovely

present and moves over to the poster of some artist's work like Munch which took your breath away

on a museum visit. Even the perfect teapot in your hand, though manufactured partly by machine was

designed so well, it's shape and proportions, it's materials, the colour, the glaze. You're lead to think

 about design and manufacturing, it's sophistication, the high levels of skill. You see your mobile

phone and marvel at it, at computers, remembering when they weren't ubiquitous and all of a sudden,

you are overwhelmed by it all. The world is humming, buzzing, vibrating with creative activity and

the evidence of it all and it all seems, of such dazzling calibre that anything you might make yourself

today will seem so meagre, so unformed and insignificant, that you wonder if you might just make

a nice cake. Stands for some time, contemplating the possibilities.

Cycle

A circle,

A closed whole,

Perpetual motion,

Cycle of Fate.



Ohm of my o,

Obvious shape,

Mouth in motion,

Offering. Open.



Ripple and swirl,

Centre unfurl,

Moon then Sun,

The end that's begun.